Middle East protests: Yemenis clash with riot police across the country

Yemen was racked by a ninth consecutive day of violence on Saturday as street
battles broke out across the capital and live ammunition was used against
students calling for an end to President Saleh's 32-year rule.

Supporters of the Yemeni government shout at anti-government demonstrators, not pictured, in SanaaPhoto: AP

By Tom Finn and Collette Hogg, Sana'a

5:00PM GMT 19 Feb 2011

A group of 1,000 protesters, mainly students and educated professionals, were attacked outside Sana'a University by pro-Saleh tribesmen armed with batons, rocks and guns.

"After retreating some of them returned with AK-47's and started firing into the crowd," said Yasir Al-Mahwi, an English-language student with a bloodied hand, showing a crowd of people mobile videos and photos of the shootings.

"I saw one shot in the stomach and another bleeding from the neck."

Later, supporters of President Ali Abdullah Saleh dispersed the protesters and took control of the area around the university campus and surrounding roads.

The demonstrations came a day after four Yemenis were killed in the southern city of Aden. One resident who did not wish to be named told The Sunday Telegraph that Aden looked like a "war zone," saying there were no police present on the streets and that people were looting and destroying government buildings.

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Local newspaper The Yemen Post reported that people were being prevent from entering or leaving the port city.

Friday's clashes left four dead and 17 injured in Aden.

Meanwhile in Taiz, an impoverished city around 100 miles south of the capital, medics reported that one person died and 47 others were injured on Friday when a grenade was thrown into a crowd of protesters. Local authorities announced that eight officials connected to the attack have been detained.

About 10,000 protesters gathered in Taiz's Hurriya Square, and a similar number of government loyalists assembled in the centre of the city in some of the largest demonstrations seen throughout Yemen in a decade.

Taiz has a sizeable middle class and its population of four million is from both the north and the south.

Speaking on Saturday at a conference of civil society organisations Mr Saleh accused foreign countries of "plotting against Yemen and its security and stability".

"Those who want power should seek it through the ballot boxes or else the Yemeni people will face destruction," he said

The American embassy in Yemen issued a statement on Friday calling on the government of Yemen to "fulfil its responsibility to protect the life and property of all Yemenis and to safeguard their basic human and civil rights."

"The attacks are contrary to the commitments that President Saleh has made to protect the right of Yemeni citizens to gather peacefully to express their views," the statement said.

Although the numbers of protesters in Yemen have remained in their thousands, rather than the tens of thousands seen elsewhere, they are becoming increasingly unpredictable and violent.

And there has been a familiar pattern emerging whereby young and largely educated, peaceful anti-Saleh protesters are dispersed by older more traditionally dressed pro-government supporters with batons and rocks.